Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal (see above) earned a victory last week when the state legislature voted to implement a voucher program for New Orleans that he supports. The bill, which received bipartisan support, introduces a venture that will start small (maximum participation is 1,500) and offer vouchers only to students in grades k-3. But its accountability measures are promising. Voucher students will sit for Louisiana state tests, for one, and schools that have operated for less than two years will need to receive state permission for voucher pupils to compose more than 20 percent of their enrollments. Those seem like reasonable ways to ensure that public money is put to proper use. As state Representative Walter Leger III said, "When you spend public funds on private enterprises, you need to make sure you get what you pay for."
"Voucher bill wins final legislative passage," by Bill Barrow, New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 18, 2008